10 Down. 2 To Go.

It’s appropriate to review my 10th book in the A Dance To The Music Of Time series on the day before Halloween.

Because this novel will probably haunt me the rest of my life. Not because A Dance is scary, but because I’ll never get back the countless hours I’ve spent reading this book.

I’ve tried. I’ve really tried.

I try to approach each book in the Dance series with a fresh mind. Maybe, just maybe, I think, the plot will pick up during this novel. Maybe, just maybe, for just a few hundred pages, these characters won’t be such a collective bore.

But, aye, no luck to this point. Throughout my light reviews of A Dance, I’ve admitted to some high points in the novel. But, as a whole, this book just wears me down.

Yet, I’m almost done. 10 of the 12 books are complete. That’s 83%. Yeah for me!

Anyway, would you like some specifics about book 10–titled Books Do Furnish A Room?

The war is over. Jenkins is back in London and has taken back to writing. Many of the other main characters who made it through the war have returned to their previous jobs. All the large Downton Abbeyish homes have been converted back to homes after serving as temporary hospitals and military headquarters.

Life is good. Widmerpool is still kicking around, married to a crazy woman, Pamela Flitton, who runs around on him and makes him foolish. And he’s trying his best to continue up the ladder of power, holding public office at the moment.

With the war, I feel like the few lone bright spots of the novel are gone. We’re back to social politics and cocktail parties. I’m just bored–though the Widmerpool drama with his wife is a bit interesting later in book 10.

It shouldn’t be this hard to like a book. It really shouldn’t.

But only two more to go, friends. Two more to go.

If you would like to revisit my past posts about A Dance To The Music of Time, here you go.

Maybe the title is a stunning insight into the author’s mentality while writing this novel series. Perhaps his goal was to create a stodgy, wooden thing whose primary job is to sit around and take up space. You can maybe sit on it if you need to. Mission accomplished?

That’s how I felt after book 10, too: Two more to go. The last two books are really quite different in that Powell tackles the modern era. Successfully, or not? I can’t wait to hear what you have to say about those books.

Nothing worse than hating a book you are reading. Nope, “not even getting a sun-burn then wearing a wool sweater” as one commercial puts it. At least I think that commercial is about books . . . or NASCAR . . . Anyway, congrats on reaching 83%!